This year’s Manchester Punk Festival was yet another sublime cacophony of smiles, sounds, and sozzles. As always, the organisers went above and beyond to make it an event to remember. The addition of even more styles of music, the addressing of previous years’ venue capacity issues, and the trial run of a new three-full-day format all enhanced what was already the obvious highlight of the UK festival calendar.
Rather than cover the event by way of endless stream of “and then I watched…., and they were good”, I thought it’d be great to shine a little light on some of the unsung heroes of festivals and live musical performance in general – the gig photographer. Seeing a wicked set of pictures can take you back to watching a band absolutely smash it or turn an idea of a punk rock road trip into a reality for next year. There’s always loads of great pictures of festivals too but it’s rare you get to see the work of (nearly) all the photographers in one place.
With that in mind I tracked down as many of the photographers covering Manchester Punk Festival as I possibly could; the idea being to showcase what they think to be their finest work from the event. Below, you’ll find their submissions, along with a few words from each about their experience of the festival and their work outside of documenting all things punk.
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